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A Brazilian Counterweight: Music, Intellectual Property and the African Diaspora in Rio de Janeiro (1910s–1930s)*
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 December 2009
Abstract
This article treats Tio Faustino, a little-known samba musician and Afro-Brazilian religious leader living in Rio de Janeiro, as an entry point for exploring larger questions about Brazil and the African Diaspora. The inquiry expands outward from Tio Faustino to Rio's early twentieth-century markets in ‘African’ commodities, the city's nascent music industry and the growing call to defend intellectual property rights in Brazil. In order to advance their careers, Tio Faustino and other artists accessed nationalist sentiment in ways that highlighted differences rather than commonalities with African-descended peoples elsewhere. In this way, Brazil's global standing and its colonial history and post-colonial trajectory functioned as a counterweight to transnational and diasporic connections. These findings deepen, rather than completely unseat, recent trends in diaspora and transnational studies.
Abstract
Este artículo trata sobre Tio Faustino, un músico de samba poco conocido y líder religioso afro-brasileño viviendo en Río de Janeiro, como punto de entrada para explorar cuestiones mayores acerca de la diáspora africana brasileña. La investigación se expande desde Tio Faustino hasta los mercados de productos ‘africanos’ de Río de principios del siglo XX, la naciente industria musical de la ciudad, y el creciente llamado para defender la propiedad intelectual en Brasil. Con el fin de avanzar en sus carreras, Tio Faustino y otros artistas adquirieron un sentimiento nacionalista en formas que marcaron diferencias en vez de similitudes con afrodescendientes en otras partes. De esta forma, la posición global de Brasil, su historia colonial y su trayectoria postcolonial sirvieron como contrapeso a las conexiones transnacionales y de la diáspora. Estos hallazgos profundizan, en vez de desbancar completamente, recientes tendencias en los estudios transnacionales y sobre diásporas.
Abstract
Como ponto de entrada para explorar questões maiores sobre o Brasil e a diáspora africana, o artigo utiliza a figura de Tio Faustino, sambista e líder religioso afro-brasileiro pouco conhecido no Rio de Janeiro. A partir do Tio Faustino a investigação se amplia para abordar o mercado carioca de mercadorias ‘africanas’ no início do século vinte, a indústria musical nascente e o clamor crescente em torno da defesa dos direitos à propriedade intelectual no Brasil. Com a ascensão profissional em vista, Tio Faustino e outros artistas acessaram sentimentos nacionalistas de forma que era dado destaque às distinções em detrimento das similaridades com afro-descendentes de outros lugares. Dessa forma o posicionamento do Brasil no mundo, sua história colonial e trajetória pós-colonial agiram como contrapeso às ligações transnacionais e da diáspora. Recentes tendências em estudos de diáspora e transnacionalidade são aprofundadas, ao invés de completemente rejeitadas desestabilizados, por tais achados.
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References
1 ‘Ouvindo os “bachareis” do samba’, Diario Carioca, 15 Jan. 1933. Unless otherwise noted, all translations are mine.
2 Fernando Ortiz, Cuban Counterpoint: Tobacco and Sugar (Durham NC, 1995 [1947]). Also see Bert J. Barickman, A Bahian Counterpoint: Sugar, Tobacco, Cassava, and Slavery in the Recôncavo, 1780–1860 (Stanford, 1998).
3 Ortiz, Cuban Counterpoint, pp. 97–103; Fernando Coronil, ‘Introduction’, in Ortiz, Cuban Counterpoint, p. xxvi.
4 To my knowledge, there are no works which seriously consider the relationship between authors' rights and nation building in the Americas. Roland Barthes, ‘The Death of an Author’, in Stephen Heath (ed. and trans.), Image-Music-Text (New York, 1977), pp. 142–8; Carlos Alberto Bittar, A lei de direitos autorais na jurisprudência (São Paulo, 1988); Rosemary J. Coombe, The Cultural Life of Intellectual Properties: Authorship, Appropriation, and the Law (Durham NC, 1998); Michel Foucault, ‘What is an Author?’, in Paul Rabinow (ed.), The Foucault Reader (New York, 1984), pp. 101–20; Manuel, Peter, ‘The Saga of a Song: Authorship and Ownership in the Case of “Guantanamera”’, Latin American Music Review, vol. 27, no. 2 (2006), pp. 121–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kembrew McLeod, Owning Culture: Authorship, Ownership, and Intellectual Property Law (New York, 2001); Rita de Cássia Lahoz Morelli, Arrogantes, anônimos, subversivos: interpretando o acordo e a discórdia na tradição autoral brasileira (São Paulo, 2000); Eduardo Pimenta, Princípios de direitos autorais: um século de proteção autoral no Brasil, 1898–1998 (Livro I) (Rio de Janeiro, 2004); Daniel Rocha, Direito de autor (São Paulo, 2001); Oswaldo Santiago, Aquarela do direito autoral: história, legislação, comentários (Rio de Janeiro, 1985 [1946]); Brad Sherman and Lionel Benty, The Making of Modern Intellectual Property Law: The British Experience, 1760–1911 (Cambridge, 1999); Matt Stahl, ‘Recording Artists, Work for Hire, Employment, and Appropriation’, SSRC Working Paper (23 Oct. 2008), available at http://ssrn.com/abstract=1288831; Jason Toynbee, ‘Music, Culture, and Creativity’, in Martin Clayton, Trevor Herbert and Richard Middleton (eds.), The Cultural Study of Music: A Critical Introduction (London, 2003), pp. 102–12; Martha Woodmansee, The Author, Art, and the Market: Rereading the History of Aesthetics (New York, 1994); Martha Woodmansee and Peter Jaszi (eds.), The Construction of Authorship: Textual Appropriation in Law and Literature (Durham NC, 1994).
5 For a longer consideration, see Marc A. Hertzman, ‘Surveillance and Difference: The Making of Samba, Race, and Nation in Brazil (1880s–1970s)’, unpubl. PhD diss., University of Wisconsin–Madison, 2008. For a fascinating exploration of ownership and music during and after slavery in the United States, see Ronald Radano, ‘Listening to America, America Listening: On the Musical Constitution of Blackness’, paper presented at the presidential session of the American Historical Association, Washington DC, 3 Jan. 2008.
6 Patterson, Tiffany Ruby and Kelley, Robin D. G., ‘Unfinished Migrations: Reflections on the African Diaspora and the Making of the Modern World’, African Studies Review, vol. 43, no. 1 (2000), p. 14.Google Scholar Responding to Patterson and Kelley, Agustín Laó-Montes calls for diaspora studies to incorporate subaltern and post-colonial perspectives more effectively. This, I argue, is a crucial point. See Laó-Montes, Agustín, ‘“Unfinished Migrations”: Commentary and Responses’, African Studies Review, vol. 43, no. 1 (2000), pp. 54–60.Google Scholar
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8 Paul Gilroy, The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness (Cambridge MA, 1993).
9 See Kristin Mann, ‘Shifting Paradigms in the Study of the African Diaspora and of Atlantic History and Culture’, in Kristen Mann and Edna G. Bay (eds.), Rethinking the African Diaspora: The Making of a Black Atlantic World in the Bight of Benin and Brazil (London, 2001), p. 15.
10 David J. Hellwig, African-American Reflections on Brazil's Racial Paradise (Philadelphia, 1992); Winston James, Holding Aloft the Banner of Ethiopia: Caribbean Radicalism in the Early Twentieth-Century America (London, 1998), pp. 97–9; Thomas E. Skidmore, Black into White: Race and Nationality in Brazilian Thought (Durham NC, 1993 [1974]), p. 67.
11 DuBois, The Negro, p. 75.
12 Alejandro de la Fuente, A Nation for All: Race, Inequality, and Politics in Twentieth-Century Cuba (Chapel Hill NC, 2001); Ada Ferrer, Insurgent Cuba: Race, Nation, and Revolution, 1868–1898 (Chapel Hill NC, 1999); Aline Helg, Our Rightful Share: The Afro-Cuban Struggle for Equality, 1886–1912 (Chapel Hill NC, 1995).
13 The foundational text is Gilberto Freyre, Casa grande e senzala: formação da familia brasileira sob o regimen de economia patriarchal (Rio de Janeiro, 1933). For discussions of racial democracy and popular music in Brazil, see Martha Abreu, ‘Mulatas, Crioulos and Morenas: Racial Hierarchy, Gender Relations, and National Identity in Postabolition Popular Song: Southeastern Brazil, 1890–1920’, in Pamela Scully and Diana Paton (eds.), Gender and Slave Emancipation in the Atlantic World (Durham NC, 2005), pp. 267–88; John Charles Chasteen, National Rhythms, African Roots: The Deep History of Latin American Popular Dance (Albuquerque, 2004); Bryan McCann, Hello, Hello Brazil: Popular Music in the Making of Modern Brazil (Durham NC, 2004); Seigel, Micol and Gomes, Tiago de Melo, ‘Sabina das Laranjeiras: gênero, raça e nação na trajectória de um símbolo popular, 1889–1930’, Revista Brasileira de História, vol. 22, no. 43 (2002), pp. 171–93CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hermano Vianna, The Mystery of Samba: Popular Music and National Identity in Brazil (Chapel Hill NC, 1999).
14 Kim D. Butler, Freedoms Given, Freedoms Won: Afro-Brazilians in Post-Abolition São Paulo and Salvador (London, 1998), p. 4.
15 Micol Seigel, Uneven Encounters: Making Race and Nation in Brazil and the United States (Durham NC, 2009), p. 187. Also see Beatriz Gallotti Mamigonian, ‘África no Brasil: mapa de uma área em expansão’, Topoi, no. 9 (2004); J. Lorand Matory, Black Atlantic Religion: Tradition, Transnationalism, and Matriarchy in the Afro-Brazilian Candomblé (Princeton, 2005); ‘Special Issue: “ReCapricorning” the Atlantic’, Luso-Brazilian Review, vol. 45, no. 1 (2008).
16 John D. French, ‘Interlocução: Not All of History Is Recorded in the Books Supplied to School Children: Pale History Books and the Neglected U.S./Brazilian Dialogue Over the New World African Diaspora, 1914–1966’, in Denise Pini Rosalem da Fonseca (ed.), Resistência e inclusão: história, cultura, educação e cidadania afro-descendentes no Brasil e nos Estados Unidos (Rio de Janeiro, 2003), p. 20.
17 Erica Ball, Melina Pappademos and Michelle Stephens, ‘Editors’ Introduction: Reconceptualizations of the African Diaspora', Radical History Review, no. 103 (2009), pp. 2, 3.
18 Roberto Moura helped coin the phrase ‘Little Africa’, though only decades after the musician and artist Heitor dos Prazeres likened Rio's portside neighbourhoods to an ‘África em miniatura’. As Maria Cecília Velasco e Cruz points out, both terms belie the significant presence of working-class white European immigrants in the same area. Butler, Freedoms Given, Freedoms Won; Alba Lirio and Heitor dos Prazeres Filho, Heitor dos Prazeres: sua arte e seu tempo (Rio de Janeiro, 2003), p. 47; Matory, Black Atlantic Religion; Roberto Moura, Tia Ciata e a Pequena África no Rio de Janeiro (Rio de Janeiro, 1995 [1983]); Velasco e Cruz, Maria Cecília, ‘Puzzling Out Slave Origins in Rio de Janeiro Port Unionism: The 1906 Strike and the Sociedade de Resistência dos Trabalhadores em Trapiche e Café’, trans. Sabrina Gledhill, Hispanic American Historical Review, vol. 62, no. 2 (May 2006), pp. 232–4.Google Scholar
19 Carlos Sandroni, Feitiço decente: transformações do samba no Rio de Janeiro, 1917–1933 (Rio de Janeiro, 2001); Sandroni, ‘Samba’, in Colin A. Palmer (ed.), The Encyclopedia of African-American Culture and History, vol. 5 (Detroit, 2006), pp. 1998–2003. Also see McCann, Hello, Hello; Flávio Silva, ‘Origines de la samba urbain à Rio de Janeiro’, unpubl. PhD diss., École Pratique des Hautes Études, 1975; Silva, Flávio, ‘Pelo telefone e a história do samba’, Cultura, vol. 8, no. 28 (1978).Google Scholar
20 Agawu, Kofi, ‘The Invention of “African Rhythm”’, Journal of the American Musicological Society, vol. 48, no. 3 (1995), pp. 380–95CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Karl Hagstrom Miller, ‘Segregating Sound: Folklore, Phonographs, and the Transformation of Southern Music, 1888–1935’, unpubl. PhD diss., New York University, 2002; Ronald Radano, Lying up a Nation: Race and Black Music (Chicago, 2003).
21 Oneida Alvarenga, Música popular brasileira (São Paulo, 1982 [1950]); Sibyl Marcuse, Musical Instruments: A Comprehensive Dictionary (New York, 1975), p. 376; Stanley Sadie (ed.), The New Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments, vol. 1 (London, 1984), pp. 192–3.
22 Alvarenga, Música popular, pp. 364, 365–6, photos 36, 38, 40–1; Mário de Andrade, Dicionário musical brasileiro (Belo Horizonte, 1999), pp. 11–13, 533; Luis da Câmara Cascudo, Dicionário do folclore brasileiro (Belo Horizonte, 1984 [1956]), pp. 18, 19; Heli Chatelain (ed.), Folk-Tales of Angola: Fifty Tales, with Ki-Mbundu Text, Literal English Translation, Introduction, and Notes (New York, 1969 [1894]), pp. 60, 61, 271 n. 217; Marcuse, Musical Instruments, p. 7; Chris McGowan and Ricardo Pessanha, The Brazilian Sound: Samba, Bossa Nova, and the Popular Music of Brazil (Philadelphia, 1998), pp. 16, 21, 42, 43, 119, 121–2, 207; Sadie, The New Grove, vol. 1, pp. 31, 32–3, 290; vol. 3, p. 71.
23 See Mary C. Karasch, Slave Life in Rio de Janeiro, 1808–1850 (Princeton, 1987), p. 233; João do Rio (Paulo Alberto Coelho Barreto), As religiões do Rio (Rio de Janeiro, 2006 [1904]), p. 45.
24 Diana Degroat Brown, Umbanda: Religion and Politics in Urban Brazil (New York, 1994), p. 25.
25 Cited in Brown, Umbanda, pp. 25–6. Roger Bastide, The African Religions of Brazil: Toward a Sociology of the Interpenetration of Civilizations (Baltimore, 2007 [1960]); Arthur Ramos, O negro brasileiro: 1o volume, etnografia religiosa (Rio de Janeiro, 2003 [1940]).
26 Donald Pierson, Negroes in Brazil: A Study of Race and Contact in Bahia (Carbondale, 1967 [1942]), p. 305. J. Lorand Matory, Luis Parés and Beatriz Dantas have shown how the idea of candomblé purity – and the hierarchical relationship between candomblé and other ‘dilutions’ – has been constructed over time. Beatriz Góis Dantas, Vovó nagô e papai branco: usos e abusos da África no Brasil (Rio de Janeiro, 1988); Matory, Black Atlantic Religion; Luis Nicolau Parés, A formação do candomblé: história e ritual da nação jeje na Bahia (Campinas, 2006).
27 Borges, Dain, ‘The Recognition of Afro-Brazilian Symbols and Ideas, 1890–1940’, Luso-Brazilian Review, vol. 32, no. 2 (1995), pp. 59–78.Google Scholar
28 Quoted in Nelson da Nobrega Fernandes, Escolas de samba: sujeitos celebrantes e objetos celebrados, Rio de Janeiro, 1928–1949 (Rio de Janeiro, 2001), p. 53. Rio's first samba schools were formed in the late 1920s and continued and adapted traditions from earlier, music-minded community organizations. See Sérgio Cabral, As escolas de samba do Rio de Janeiro (Rio de Janeiro, 1996 [1974]); Allison Raphael, ‘Samba and Social Control: Popular Culture and Racial Democracy in Rio de Janeiro’, unpubl. PhD diss., Columbia University, 1981.
29 Dain Borges, ‘Healing and Mischief: Witchcraft in Brazilian Law and Literature, 1890–1922’, in Carlos Aguirre et al. (eds.), Crime and Punishment in Latin America: Law and Society Since Late Colonial Times (Durham NC, 2001); Yvonne Maggie, Medo do feitiço: relações entre magia e poder no Brasil (Rio de Janeiro, 1992).
30 Skidmore, Black into White; Nancy Leys Stepan, ‘The Hour of Eugenics’: Race, Gender, and Nation in Latin America (Ithaca, 1991).
31 Vicente Piragibe, Diccionario de jurisprudencia penal do Brasil, vol. 1 (São Paulo, 1931), pp. 223, 366–7.
32 Arquivo Nacional (AN), ‘6z.3694’.
33 Ramos, O negro brasileiro, pp. 177–8.
34 Figner's life and the history of Brazil's early music industry remain virtually untold in English-language texts. Details and raw data about Figner and his recording empire have been made available by Humberto Franceschi, a music collector who owns Figner's personal and musical archive. Humberto Moraes Franceschi, A Casa Edison e seu tempo (Rio de Janeiro, 2002); also see Hertzman, ‘Surveillance and Difference’, pp. 152–230.
35 ‘Phonographo’, Jornal do Commercio, 26 July 1878; Franceschi, A Casa Edison e seu tempo, pp. 18, 20.
36 Quoted in Humberto Moraes Franceschi, Registro sonoro por meios mecânicos no Brasil (Rio de Janeiro, 1984), pp. 75–6.
37 Sherman and Benty, The Making of Modern Intellectual Property Law.
38 Franceschi, A Casa Edison e seu tempo, p. 117.
39 ‘Lei N. 496 de 1 de Agosto de 1898’, in Coleção das leis da República dos Estados Unidos do Brasil de 1898, vol. 1 (Rio de Janeiro, 1900), pp. 4–8; Samuel Martins, Direito autoral: seu conceito, sua historia e sua legislação entre nós (Recife, 1906), pp. 45–67; Pimenta, Princípios de direitos autorais, pp. 88–97.
40 Edinha Diniz, Chiquinha Gonzaga: uma história de vida (Rio de Janeiro, 1999), pp. 211–13.
41 Boletim da SBAT, no. 97 (July 1932), p. 8.
42 Boletim da SBAT, no. 9 (March 1925), p. 22.
43 Boletim da SBAT, no. 20 (Feb. 1926), p. 139.
44 Representatives of foreign societies were responsible for securing payments from music vendors, bars and other establishments that played or sold music written by Brazilian authors represented by the SBAT. After keeping a percentage for themselves, they then sent the money to Brazil. SBAT representatives did the same for foreign works played in Brazil.
45 Boletim da SBAT, no. 31 (Jan. 1927), p. 250.
46 The law was in fact severely limited. ‘Decreto N. 5.492 de 16 de julho de 1928’, in Collecção das leis da República dos Estados Unidos do Brasil de 1928, vol. 1 (Rio de Janeiro, 1929), pp. 124–8. For more details, see Hertzman, ‘Surveillance and Difference’, pp. 338, 353–8.
47 McCann, Hello, Hello, p. 26.
48 William Berrien, ‘Latin American Composers and their Problems’ (Washington DC, 1938).
49 Ibid., pp. 3, 12, 15.
50 Zephyr L. Frank, Dutra's World: Wealth and Family in Nineteenth-Century Rio de Janeiro (Albuquerque, 2004).
51 Emphasis in original. Keila Grinberg, ‘Slavery, Liberalism, and Civil Law: Definitions of Status and Citizenship in the Elaboration of the Brazilian Civil Code (1855–1916)’, in Sarah C. Chambers, Sueann Caulfield and Lara Putnam (eds.), Honor, Status, and Law in Modern Latin America (Durham NC, 2005), p. 109.
52 Arquivo Nacional, Fundo Privilégios Industriais (AN-FPI); Instituto Nacional da Propriedade Industrial, Rio de Janeiro (INPI).
53 Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística, Estatísticas do século XX (CD-ROM) (Rio de Janeiro, 2003).
54 Mello Moraes Filho, Serenatas e saráus: collecção de autos populares, lundús, recitativos, modinhas, duetos, serenatas barcarolas e outras producções brazileiras antigas e modernas, vol. 1 (Rio de Janeiro, 1901–2), p. vii.
55 Quoted in Cabral, As escolas de samba, p. 109.
56 See McCann, Hello, Hello, pp. 129–59; Perrone and Dunn (eds.), Brazilian Popular Music.
57 Mário de Andrade, Pequena história da música (Belo Horizonte, 2003 [1944]), pp. 163, 195.
58 Andrade, Ensaio sobre a música brasileira (São Paulo, 1972 [1928]), p. 29.
59 Sérgio Cabral, Pixinguinha: vida e obra (Rio de Janeiro, 1997); Donga, Pixinguinha and João da Baiana, As vozes desassombradas do museu (Rio de Janeiro, 1970); Hertzman, ‘Surveillance and Difference’, pp. 232–86; Seigel, Uneven Encounters, pp. 95–135; Marilia T. Barboza da Silva and Arthur L. de Oliveira Filho, Filho de Ogum Bexiguento (Rio de Janeiro, 1979).
60 ‘A propósito dos “Oito Batutas”’, A Noite, 25 Sep. 1922.
61 ‘Vinte minutos de Rua do Ouvidor’, A Notícia, 16 Aug. 1922.
62 Gerard Béhague, ‘Latin American Music, c. 1920–c.1980’, in Leslie Bethell (ed.), The Cambridge History of Latin America, vol. 10: Latin America Since 1930: Ideas, Culture and Society (Cambridge, 1995), pp. 307–64.
63 Cabral, Pixinguinha, pp. 53–7, 61–2.
64 ‘Os Oito Batutas’, Gazeta de Notícias, 22 Jan. 1922.
65 Seigel provides a slightly different analysis of Costallat's statement, focused on what the statement tells us about Costallat and other white opinion makers rather than on the way that Pixinguinha and other Afro-Brazilian artists engaged their ideas. Seigel, Uneven Encounters, pp. 129–30.
66 Eduardo das Neves, Trovador da malandragem (Rio de Janeiro, 1926), p. 9.
67 Cabral, Pixinguinha, p. 134.
68 W. E. B. DuBois, The Souls of Black Folk (Boston, 1997 [1903]); Gilroy, The Black Atlantic.
69 Gilroy, The Black Atlantic, p. 30.
70 Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Twenty-Four Negro Melodies (New York, 1980 [1905]).
71 Geoffrey Self, The Hiawatha Man: The Life and Work of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (Aldershot, 1995), p. 159. Also see Black Music Research Journal vol. 21, no. 2 (Special Issue on Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, 2001); Avril Coleridge-Taylor, The Heritage of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (London, 1979); W. C. Berwick Sayers, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor: His Life and Letters (London, 1927); William Tortolano, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor: Anglo-Black Composer, 1875–1912 (Oxford, 2002).
72 Richards, Paul, ‘A Pan-African Composer? Coleridge-Taylor and Africa’, Black Music Research Journal, vol. 21, no. 2 (2001), p. 246.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
73 See Dudziak, Mary L., ‘Josephine Baker, Racial Protest, and the Cold War’, The Journal of American History, vol. 81, no. 2 (1994), pp. 543–70CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ingrid Monson, ‘Art Blakey's African Diaspora’, in Monson (ed.), The African Diaspora: A Musical Perspective (New York, 2003), pp. 329–52; Penny M. Von Eschen, Satchmo Blows up the World: Jazz Ambassadors Play the Cold War (Cambridge MA, 2004).
74 Monson, ‘Art Blakey's African Diaspora’, p. 132.
75 Louis Onuorah Chude-Sokei, The Last ‘Darky’: Bert Williams, Black-on-Black Minstrelsy, and the African Diaspora (Durham NC, 2006), p. 15.
76 Emphasis in original. Foucault, ‘What is an Author?’, p. 101.
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